Prosody-Based Automatic Segmentation of Speech into Sentences and Topics

A crucial step in processing speech audio data for information extraction, topic detection, or browsing/playback is to segment the input into sentence and topic units. Speech segmentation is challenging, since the cues typically present for segmenting text (headers, paragraphs, punctuation) are absent in spoken language. We investigate the use of prosody (information gleaned from the timing and melody of speech) for these tasks. Using decision tree and hidden Markov modeling techniques, we combine prosodic cues with word-based approaches, and evaluate performance on two speech corpora, Broadcast News and Switchboard. Results show that the prosodic model alone performs on par with, or better than, word-based statistical language models -- for both true and automatically recognized words in news speech. The prosodic model achieves comparable performance with significantly less training data, and requires no hand-labeling of prosodic events. Across tasks and corpora, we obtain a significant improvement over word-only models using a probabilistic combination of prosodic and lexical information. Inspection reveals that the prosodic models capture language-independent boundary indicators described in the literature. Finally, cue usage is task and corpus dependent. For example, pause and pitch features are highly informative for segmenting news speech, whereas pause, duration and word-based cues dominate for natural conversation.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures. To appear in Speech Communication 32(1-2), Special Issue on Accessing Information in Spoken Audio, September 200

Integrating Prosodic and Lexical Cues for Automatic Topic Segmentation

We present a probabilistic model that uses both prosodic and lexical cues for the automatic segmentation of speech into topically coherent units. We propose two methods for combining lexical and prosodic information using hidden Markov models and decision trees. Lexical information is obtained from a speech recognizer, and prosodic features are extracted automatically from speech waveforms. We evaluate our approach on the Broadcast News corpus, using the DARPA-TDT evaluation metrics. Results show that the prosodic model alone is competitive with word-based segmentation methods. Furthermore, we achieve a significant reduction in error by combining the prosodic and word-based knowledge sources.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Transformation of public text in totalitarian system : a socio-semiotic study of Soviet censorship practices in Estonian Radio in the 1980s

http://tartu.ester.ee/record=b1459039~S1*es

The mediated veteran : how news sources narrate the pain and potential of returning soldiers

textThe “global war on terrorism” has pervaded the social scene following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Although the ripple effects of the wars are continuing to spread across the globe in the various political and foreign policy arenas, the aim of this study is to turn attention to the individuals who bore the battle, have returned home, and now face new challenges. The United States veteran population has experienced an unprecedented increase in numbers as a response to troop withdrawals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Although previous research has considered the potential difficulties veterans face when reintegrating into society, this study goes a step further and investigates how news media sources are called to participate in narrating veteran stories of war and specifically their stories documenting post-traumatic stress disorder. Drawing on a variety of theoretical perspectives and utilizing a multi-methodological approach, this study seeks to answer four central questions: First, how and by what channels do sources enter the news media conversation to comment on the veteran experience? Second, are veterans the main sources narrating their experiences or do other individuals, groups, or organizations speak more often in the news media? Third, what stories circulated and gained traction by narrating the lived experiences of veterans with PTSD? And fourth, what stories did veterans tell about their experiences, and what stories were told about veterans who suffer from PTSD? This study is organized in two distinct parts. Part one employs a quantitative content indexing analysis of four veteran related news media events across various newspaper, broadcast television news, and cable television news outlets in order to determine how sources entered the news media landscape, and who the sources were. Part two turns to examine four dominant news narratives that emerged from the direct quotation and paraphrased remarks gathered from part one’s analyzed news media texts. The study concludes by illustrating the powerful role news media sources play in the news, as well as the stories that emerge to define the lived experiences of veterans who suffer from PTSD.Communication Studie

Antitrust Language Barriers: First Amendment Constraints on Defining an Antitrust Market by a Broadcast\u27s Language, and its Implications for Audiences, Competition, and Democracy

This Article explores whether the language of a broadcaster\u27s program appropriately defines an antitrust market, consistent with First Amendment and antitrust principles. In its evaluation of the 2008 private equity buyout of Clear Channel Communications, the Department of Justice ( DOJ ) defined the antitrust market by the language of the broadcast, as it had done for the 2003 merger of Univision and Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation. This Article uses social science research on Spanish and English-language radio and television to evaluate that decision. It argues that the distinct content and messages that characterize Spanish and English-language programming show that market definition is content-based and subject to strict constitutional scrutiny; however, that distinctiveness alone is insufficient to establish a separate antitrust market. Through an examination of advertiser and audience substitution between program languages, advertiser alternatives if faced with a price increase by merging parties, and a supply-side antitrust analysis of broadcaster entry between languages, the Article concludes that broadcast markets are not rigidly divided by language, but operate as one marketplace of ideas, with audience and advertiser loyalty contestable between languages